The American Way

Joe Lieberman says we should invade Iran because we have “incontrovertible evidence” that someone in Iran is supplying weapons to Iraq, and some Iraqis are using those weapons to kill Americans.

Given the “incontrovertible evidence” of Iraqi WMD that turned out to be false, we have good reason to just ignore all such nonsense from war hawks. But even if it’s true that Iran is sending weapons to Iraq, how does that justify invading a sovereign nation?

To absorb the full force of how criminally insane Liebermanâ€™s statement was, suppose we adopted the following proposition:

â€œThe United States should launch airstrikes against any country which is supplying weapons or other support to insurgents in Iraq.â€

Who would we have to bomb?

Of course we would have to bomb Syria. Thereâ€™s no question that Syria could be doing more to stop the flow of weapons and fighters across the Syrian-Iraqi border. They could, for example, construct a 20-foot high electrified fence along the entire border, with a shark-infested moat. Since they arenâ€™t doing this, weâ€™d have to bomb them. But we would also have to bomb Saudi Arabia and Jordan, who could also be doing more to stop the flow of fighters and money from their territory to Sunni insurgents.

But, to be fully consistent, we couldnâ€™t stop there. We would also have to bomb the United States.

With the four-month-old increase in American troops showing only modest success in curbing insurgent attacks, American commanders are turning to another strategy that they acknowledge is fraught with risk: arming Sunni Arab groups that have promised to fight militants linked with Al Qaeda who have been their allies in the past.